Senior Grace Berger leads Sacred Heart in big victory over Eastern

Sacred Heart's Kia Sivils (20) drives to the basket around Eastern's Mikayla Kinnard (12) during the game at Eastern High School in Louisville, Kentucky, Saturday, December 13, 2017(Photo: Bryan Woolston, Special to Courier Journal)Buy Photo

One of the state’s top Miss Basketball candidates had the hot hand early as Sacred Heart scored an impressive 86-56 victory at Eastern Wednesday night.

Senior Grace Berger led the Valkyries (5-1), the No. 2 team in Courier Journal’s preseason coaches’ poll, with 24 points and 13 rebounds, both season highs. The 5-11 guard scored 12 in the first quarter alone as Sacred Heart showed no ill effects from Saturday’s last-second 65-63 loss at top-ranked Mercer County.

Instead, the Valkyries came out energized, jumping out to an 11-2 lead less than two minutes into the contest. It didn’t stop there as the Valkyries grew the lead to 43-11 midway through the second quarter after a Caroline Flaherty trey.

“We came out and hit from every spot,” Sacred Heart coach Donna Moir said. “Grace played a great first half and really took the team on her back.”

Berger, who coaches picked second in Courier Journal’s preseason player poll, made eight of her nine shots in the first half as Sacred Heart 22-2 first half run to put away the contest.

The Indiana signee said she and her teammates were ready to move on after suffering their first loss of the season.

“We were definitely pumped up to play tonight and show that we were better than we showed in the fourth quarter on Saturday,” said Berger, who finished shooting 9 of 15 from the field and added five assists.

The Eagles (3-1) opened the season with wins over Mercy and Manual, two teams ranked in the preseason top 10. However, they hadn’t played since Dec. 1 and showed some rust while the Valkyries started strong. While Sacred Heart made 7 of 13 first-half 3-pointers, the Eagles shot just 28.1 percent overall in the half.

Eastern did mount an 11-1 run late in the first half, but the Valkyries still took a 24-point lead into intermission.

Eastern coach Josh Leslie refused to use the layoff as an excuse. Instead, he credited Berger, who he called as good as anybody in the state.

“She got them off to a good start, and we just had to try to play catchup the rest of the time,” he said. “Against them, that’s tough to do. You can’t just play catchup with them the whole time.”

Sacred Heart dominated in several aspects of the game. The Valkyries made 10 of 21 3-pointers, while Eastern missed 14 of 15. They also enjoyed a 52-33 rebounding edge.

While the Valkyries cooled down in the second half, thanks partially to nine third quarter turnovers, they still kept command. The closest the Eagles got in the second half was 58-40 late in the third quarter.

Kia Sivils added 13 points for the Valkyries, who also got 11 from Kiki Samsel.